CSUN graduate student creates new search engine

One CSUN graduate student said he wanted to learn more about search engines and decided to combine all the features that every major search engine has to offer.

Md Arshat Ali Suzon, a CSUN student, has created megasearches.com, a meta search engine that searches all the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing. Photo Credit: Natalia Bereznyuk / Staff Photographer

Md Ershad Ali Suzon, 29, who is studying for his master’s in computer sciences, created Megasearches.com earlier this year.

“The primary purpose is to learn about search engines and make it useful for me and for whoever else is using it,” Suzon said. “If it eventually becomes commercial, it’ll be an additional benefit.”

Megasearches.com is categorized so users can look for something specific, Suzon said. The site is divided into search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing, but it is also by topics—including jobs, music, movies and events.

Suzon said his site is becoming more popular with people from more than 25 countries utilizing it.

“It surprised me a little bit, but in a good way,” said Faisal Ahmed, a design engineer who went to Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota with Suzon.

“Being an engineer, I would like to get all my information very quickly and with this search engine, I don’t have to type my search many different times. It compiles it for me,” he said.

Ahmed, who has been friends with Suzon for a decade, said he helped Suzon by providing feedback of how the site can be more convenient and efficient for users.

Suggestions included how to improve the search, how it can look in terms of framing, colors and contrast, as well as inserting shortcuts.

“The main idea is no idea is too small,” Ahmed said. “If you work on an idea that you believe in, it can be very big.”

Ahmed said both the idea and the implementation of the site were really good.

“Ever since, he started to integrate other techniques that are common in advanced websites. He had put a lot of work into building this website,” Ahmed said.

Another feature is the parallel tab search option in which a user can search a topic and compare the results on different search engines.

Arindam Khaled, 31, said the parallel tab is his favorite feature.

Khaled, who is pursuing his doctorate in computer sciences, has known Suzon since they attended Saint Cloud.

“I think it is a good thing for him because he is taking his own initiative,” Khaled said. “He’s one of the most dedicated persons I’ve seen. He’s a very patient guy, very persistent and he can work hard. Failures don’t scare him.”

Khaled said he also helped Suzon by providing feedback when the site was in its testing stage.

Suzon said he launched the site internally last March and he kept tweaking it to ensure it worked on every browser before publicly publishing it in June.

“He has some creative ideas and this was one of his ideas,” Khaled said. “I always expected he would do some web portal design and implement something that everybody could use.”

Khaled said he suggested Suzon give users the option to customize the search engines they could use.

Suzon said he has also created a forum where users can sign in and provide feedback on how to improve the site.

Suzon also said it was difficult to create this site at times because he had little knowledge about the technology used in this industry.

“In this industry, there are many technologies that students are not familiar with,” Suzon said. “I feel that students should be exposed to those technologies when they graduate so that they are in line with the technologies of the industry.”

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